This passage is a part of the second sermon of Jeremiah to Judah, which begins in chapter 3, verse 6 and ends at chapter 6, verse 30. The people of Judah had turned from the Lord, so God sent Jeremiah to call them to repentance. He pointed
out their sin, warned them of the judgment, and offered them an opportunity
to repent. These are the three great
themes of this sermon. God’s mercy and grace are contrasted with
Judah’s wickedness.
In 6:13-19, Jeremiah was drawing the sermon to a close, and summarizing the message. The condemnation was stated clearly in vs. 13-14 where the false prophets and people had rejected God. Given the divine
condemnation, the LORD calls them to return to the old paths, the good
way. However, the people refused. Though God offered them a chance they would not heed, and judgment was prophesied.
But what were the old paths? The simplest answer would be the opposite of
what they had been condemned for. Because this was the summary of the sermon, the
particular sin was not given here, but it was made clear throughout the message. There are many descriptions, but
only one sin: rejecting Jehovah to worship pagan gods. These were not idols of the mind, flesh, or wrong priorities. Judah had worshipped the graven images of the surrounding nations. At the beginning of the sermon Jeremiah graphically described Judah’s
behavior as whoredom. (3:9) Leaving the Jehovah, they had “committed adultery with stones and with stocks.” They had been unfaithful to the true God, and
had turned to idols made of rock and wood.
The religious leaders had not left their vocation, but directed it toward pagan gods. In 5:31 the prophets had spoken false words, words that had not
come from God. The priests had ruled by their
own means rather than God’s Law, and the people loved it. There were both pagan leaders and pagan
followers. The sin of Judah was not
merely breaking the Law of Moses, or not serving God as well as they should,
but a wholesale rejection of Jehovah. The gravity of the situation was labeled as
an “abomination” in 6:15.
Despite
this polytheistic heathenism, God called them back to the right way. "The emphasis is on the good way - which was the way of God, not just the way of old." (Dave Delaney) There were many "old paths", but only one "good way." The good way was the life the Israelites had walked when they were founded as a nation at Mt. Sinai. This old way was laid down from the beginning by Moses, summed up in “Hear, O Israel: The
LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deut. 6:4) Judah was being called away from paganism, back to the very foundation of their nation, back to
the original life, the old, good path, where they had one God - Jehovah, whom they
served. They had left this path for Balaam
and would be made desolate as a result.
The only way to divert this was to return to worship and service of the
LORD, Jehovah. To fail to do so was to bring judgment
by a foreign nation.
The sin of Judah was paganism, the remedy was repentance, and obedience would bring mercy; failure would bring captivity.
